I tried to take Will Ashon’s portrait. Somehow things got mixed up and it ended as an iPhone thing. Here’s what we have to say about it…

Shorter is an app for iPhone and iPad featuring a collection of eighty nine very short stories by Will Ashon for very short trips. A random story is chosen for you to read each time the app is opened. Making it an ideal companion for travel (a story between stops) or toilet breaks.

New stories will be automatically added at unexpected moments, magically sent over the airwaves without having to download the app again, with a little red dot marking their arrival.

Will Ashon is the author of two novels “Clear Water” and “Heritage” both published by Faber and Faber. The app comes decorated with a lovely illustration by Timothy Hunt. It costs 69p, less than a penny a tale and will last longer than a Mars Bar, unless you are an exceptional slow eater.

Here’s what other people have said about it…

“…excellent value for money; the stories never disappoint with their surreal take on early 21st-century life” – Nicola Presley, The Literary Platform.Read the full review

“A dead-on depiction of early 21st Century life that soon gives way to something much wilder and stranger. The best collection of short stories I’ve read in years.” – Matt Thorne (Cherry, 8 Minutes Idle, Prince)

“Funny, smart, playful, twisted and devastatingly precise” – Peter Hobbs (The Short Day Dying, I Could Ride All Day In My Cool Blue Train)